


A Strength Of Our Own

by adreadfulidea



Series: The Overview Effect [2]
Category: Mad Men
Genre: Other, post 7X05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-19 11:32:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2386805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He fiddled with his fork. It sounded great. The three of them in some pretty beach town, all day all night, evenings spent sitting around the kitchen table in low warm light, Peggy in a swimsuit, the smell of salt in her hair, on Stan’s skin, nothing in the way -</p><p>“No,” he said. “I can’t - I got a… work thing. I have work.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I suppose I am sick, one of those weak and divided people who slip like shadows among you solid strong ones. But sometimes, out of necessity, we shadowy people take on a strength of our own. I have that now.
> 
> \- Tennessee Williams, Summer and Smoke
> 
> This story takes place in the summer of '72.

The phone rang - once, twice, three times. Ginsberg looked over at it but didn’t get up. Under ordinary circumstances Luisa would shove him out of the way to get to it first; besides, it was closest to her.

Currently she was laying with her head on her desk, sunglasses still on. He assumed this was intended to help with the hangover, or possibly to facilitate a nap.

“Luisa,” he said. “Lou. You want me to get that?”

She coughed and croaked out an answer. “Yes.”

The caller hung up just as he got to the phone. He put the receiver back down on the cradle. “That coulda been important. Now we’ll never know.”

“I don’t care,” Luisa said. She grabbed his arm as he passed by. “Ginz, get me a cup of coffee.”

“No.”

“Please? I’m dying.”

He rolled his eyes but did it anyway, and managed to find her a couple of aspirins while he was at it. They were never in short supply in a newsroom, even one as small as theirs.

She was sitting up when he got back, sunglasses pushed up into her wavy hair and rubbing at her bloodshot eyes. “Even my teeth hurt,” she muttered. There were traces of the previous day’s eyeliner smeared across her lids.

“What the hell did you do last night?” he asked, handing her the mug.

“What didn’t I do last night,” she groaned, and chugged her coffee. Luisa always drank it like it was water. He didn’t know how she avoided making herself sick, especially today. “I was out with my cousins.”

Ginsberg winced. Her cousins were in the marines. That was some hard drinking. “And you had to keep up with them, huh?”

“I couldn’t let them _win_ ,” she said, and lowered her sunglasses to cover her eyes once more.

Luisa was the best writer they had. She belonged to war zones and behind picket lines, someplace really important, not a middling news and entertainment weekly. But maybe they wouldn’t let a girl in - he knew that she had gotten in trouble for her attitude at least once before. The paper she had written for in Philadelphia had sent her packing and she had, in her own words, crawled back to New York with her tail between her legs.

She and Vickie Koch were old friends, though. She had a guaranteed place at the the Citizen, which Ginsberg was glad for because she didn’t mind sharing her office with a lowly copy editor. He wasn’t even the _main_ copy editor.

He read the paper from top to bottom every week and never contributed a word to it. Instead he rearranged advertisements, checked word counts, put together the classifieds. He had been doing it for almost a year and he wasn’t about to complain. If they wanted it he would cheerfully have been a damned receptionist.

The phone rang again. He picked it up promptly this time. Luisa pillowed her head on her arms, turned away from the window and the sunlight that had to be hurting her eyes. “Hello?” he said, and sat down on the edge of her desk.

“Hi,” said Peggy. “Are you busy?”

 

 

It was Margie who got him the job. She ran into him while he was grabbing a quick lunch in downtown Manhattan. Gave him a big hug, like she hadn’t heard about him. Like he was normal, still. It was nice.

They sat down together and Ginsberg enjoyed his minute of blissful ignorance. Then Margie smiled in the gentlest, most motherly way possible. “So,” she said, “how have you been holdin’ up these days?”

“You know about that,” he said.

“People do talk.”

He’d had an interview at Oglivy, a couple months after he got out of the hospital, once he felt strong enough to start looking for work again. It was just freelancing, but he had gone out and bought a new jacket for the occasion. Had shaved his face until his skin squeaked, made sure to get a full eight hours the night before, the whole nine yards. It was a chance for a fresh start. He couldn’t squander it.

Peggy had coached him but she didn’t like the idea. She thought he was rushing back into things too quickly.

The interview was going okay - for him, anyway - until about halfway through. A secretary had knocked on the door and asked the interviewer to step out, with a quick and nervous glance in Ginsberg’s direction. That was when he knew it was over. Somebody had picked up on some gossip, or knew him from SC&P - so, yeah. People _did_ talk.

The interviewer had been afraid of him, after. It was ridiculous - a man twice his size cringing backwards when Ginsberg tried to hand him his resume. Sometimes he wished he was the kind of person who could enjoy that. Instead he left quietly and went home feeling sick to his stomach.

“It’s not like - I’m not an invalid,” he said. “I got a job.”

“Is it a good one?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I drive a truck. It’ll do.”

He delivered plumbing supplies to shops and construction sites all around the city. Most of his day was spent in traffic, cursing on some asshole for cutting him off. The pay was low and the schedule was shit, but he wasn’t in a position to turn anything down; his medical bills and long stretch of unemployment had bled his savings dry. No one warned him how expensive losing his mind would be.

“Is that what you want to be doing?” Margie asked, sipping her iced tea. She was having that and a reuben. He had finished eating so he only had a cup of coffee in front of him.

“Does it matter?” he asked. “It puts food on the table.”

“Well, I know how that feels,” said Margie. “I guess it’s good you don’t have kids. They’re expensive.” She had raised her children - a son and a daughter - on her own. Her husband had died a few years into his thirties, in a car accident.

“See, it could be worse,” he said.

“And you’re young, still. You don’t have to be a truck driver forever if you don’t want to.”

Ginsberg didn’t see what choice he had. He was shut out of the only industry he ever succeeded in, he had no education - some days he wanted to run away, go to a city where no one knew his name. But he couldn’t let himself think like that. He had so much good in his life - good family, good friends and (fingers crossed, fingers forever fucking crossed) good health. When he got that urge, to leave everything behind and shed his skin and _forget_ as hard as he could - that was when he remembered what Peggy said to him at the institution. _We’re all in pieces. But we can all learn how to live with it, too._ There were no new beginnings, only a life that he kept on living. He thought about his father, about Peggy and Stan, and how much he would hurt them if he took off one day.

“We’ll see,” he said.

“I can’t make any promises,” Margie said, with a spark in her eye like she had a great idea, “but I might have a better opportunity for you. I ever tell you about my daughter, Vickie? And that newspaper she runs?”

Vickie Koch didn’t look like her mother. She was a lanky dishwater blonde with freckles and the slouch-shouldered posture that certain tall women developed, like she was apologizing for her height. Ginsberg found her to be very soft spoken, almost shy. She could put her foot down when needed, though - she would have been a terrible editor if she couldn’t.

The paper had started out of somebody’s home office, outfitted with a secondhand printing press and three reporters. Vickie had been one of them.

“So how are you doing now?” Ginsberg asked, while she was interviewing him.

“Teetering on the brink of financial ruin,” she said, writing something down on a legal pad. “But you come from advertising - you should be used to that.”

 

 

“Not really,” he told Peggy, poking Luisa’s motionless shoulder. She slapped his hand away. “You?”

“I told Don,” she said. “Well, everyone. But Don in particular.”

He brought the phone back to his own desk and sat down. “How’d he take it?”

When she didn’t answer right away he braced himself for the worst; Don still had the ability to upset Peggy like no one else. If she started crying Ginsberg was going to go down there and get her. He didn’t care if he wasn’t allowed in the building.

But then she sighed, a kind of verbal shrug, and said, “I don’t know. He didn’t say much - I think he was okay.”

“What about you?” He could hear her moving around, the sound of a desk drawer opening. He pictured her reaching for those violet candies she ate, half buried under pencil stubs and old memos. Slipping off her shoes and relaxing a little since she was alone in the room. She would need to be, to have this conversation.

“I’m fine. No, I really am. I just thought that it would be _more_ , somehow.”

“A bang, not a whimper.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, and followed it up with a laugh. It was self-deprecating but not harsh. “I should be happy it went so well.”

She had wanted it to matter. To Don, yeah, but to everyone else, too. She had given years of her life to that place. There was a good chance that Ken would take her for a fare-thee-well lunch, and maybe Joan as well. But that was all - she didn’t have many friends left there.

“Are you going to finish out the week?”

“I will. I want to clean my plate before I go, so I can start at Wells Rich and Greene with a clear conscience. Then a couple weeks off before the new job starts. Which is good - I could really use them.”

She had been incredibly busy the past few months. Planning the wedding, getting away from Sterling Cooper - she must have wanted a nap the length of a coma.

“It’s a great opportunity, Peggy,” he reassured her. “You’d have to be an idiot to turn them down.”

“I know,” she said, and he let her sit in silence for a few minutes. There were times when she needed that, just companionable quiet on the other end of a phone line. “You’re still taking the afternoon off, right?”

He went home early on Wednesdays to work on his commissions, when he had them and time permitted. It was all neighborhood stuff - the bakery down the street wanted to run an ad in the paper, a shoe store asked him for some funny taglines for coupons. Small scale, but still more copywriting than he ever thought he would do again.

Peggy worried about him overworking himself. He could have done them in his sleep, and he hated being bored. If he didn’t have commissions he worked on his writing, whatever he had going at that particular moment. He had recently started something new. It was about a group of people who woke up to find that they could no longer speak. All across the world - old men, children, young women. No doctors could figure it out. _The Silent Epidemic_ , the newspapers called it.

“Sure, as usual,” he said. “Why?”

“Come do something with me,” she said. “I don’t want to stay here - it feels too weird.”

“Not like they can fire you at this point.”

“Exactly. So you should play hooky with me.”

“Movie?” he said with a smile. Across the room Luisa sat up and looked at him.

“After lunch,” Peggy decided, and they said their goodbyes.

Luisa clucked her tongue. “Poor stupid Ginsberg,” she said, with a sad shake of her head. “You are in dangerous waters, my friend.”

“Don’t even start.” He pointed a finger at her. “I do not want to hear this.”

“I’m just saying - the married ones will break your heart every time. She is not going to leave him - trust me, I’ve been there.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“They’ll claim to be lonely, but all they are is _bored_ -”

“Okay,” muttered Ginsberg, liberating his keys from behind the desk where they had fallen. “I’m leaving now, and I am gonna forget that this conversation ever happened because you are insane.”

“I hope for your sake that hubby-to-be is a small guy,” she yelled as he went out the door. “otherwise you’re dead meat.”

 

 

He thought about it all the way down to meet Peggy. Stupid, impossible things - the image of the two of them rolling around in her bed, bare against the sheets. Waking up together in warm morning sunshine and staying there for as long as they could. He pictured Stan backing him up against the kitchen table, pushing him down, and bit the inside of his cheek to chase it off.

Goddamned Luisa, putting this in his head. She could suffer through all future hangovers alone. And he needed to get uglier friends. Or start dating someone.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried.

He had even been seeing someone - well, kinda. His name was Phillip. They met at some dive bar Luisa dragged him to. Phillip invited him to go see a friend’s band play - there was a lot of tambourine involved - and in an alley behind the club Phillip kissed Ginsberg instead of having a smoke like he was supposed to. Ginsberg’s hands had been shaking, he worried he was breathing funny - but Phillip hadn’t noticed any of that.

It had been a long time since anyone had touched him like that. He didn’t know whether to move closer or pull away.

He picked closer and closer and _more_ \- they only broke apart when someone opened the door and half fell out, drunk. It was idiotic of them. Reckless. It felt incredible.

So they met for a drink, and then they were supposed to - what was it, go to a party? He couldn’t remember because they never made it there. Instead they went back to Phillip’s place and into his bedroom.

And Ginsberg had thought _yes_ and he had thought _no_ and been terrified and excited. He wanted it to happen, he did, right up until Phillip got his hands on the hem of his shirt and tried to pull it off.

When the panic hit it hit hard - Ginsberg rolled away like those hands were hurting him, tugging his shirt back down. He almost fell right off the bed. “I can’t,” he said, “I’m sorry, I _can’t_.”

Phillip didn’t know about him. He didn’t know why there was a ragged weal of scar tissue on Ginsberg’s chest. He couldn’t see it - he couldn’t, god. There would be questions, and disgust, and he would think that Ginsberg was a freak. A crazy freak who cut into his own skin - who wanted that in bed with them?

Phillip flopped down onto his back and blew out a breath. “Just my luck,” he said with a petulant glare at the ceiling. “I would go home with a closet case.”

Ginsberg flinched, because that wasn’t fair and it wasn’t true - he had told everyone who mattered to him. Even Stan. But that didn’t count, apparently.

(He had been so, so scared. But in the end -

Stan hadn’t cared at all.)

“I’m not -” he said, and stopped because there was no point in arguing. He couldn’t even take off his shirt. What were they going to do, cuddle?

He told an abridged version of the story to Peggy later, standing in her kitchen with the cat winding around his leg in an appeal for attention. “I think I’m gonna be a lifelong bachelor,” he said. “It won’t happen, for me. For some people - that’s how it is. How could I ever explain about myself to anyone?” It made her mouth go tight and unhappy.

Everyone made it look so easy. They fell together, naturally, casually, hand in hand. And here he was, locked outside.

Peggy got to the diner before he did. He could see her through the window, waiting for him in a booth and reading the menu. She was dressed up, wearing a pale green dress with a pleated skirt and a fancy silk scarf tied around her neck.

“The coffee here isn’t very good,” she said when he sat down across from her. “You might want to order something else.”

He got a coke instead, and some fries. She had a grilled cheese. While they ate she looked at a magazine she had brought in with her. It had a woman in a wedding dress on the front, throwing a bouquet of roses into the air.

Peggy rolled her eyes at him. “I am so sick of these things. I’m going to show up in a red dress, grab Stan and elope to Vegas.”

“I could stand up and object to the wedding,” he said. “That ought to throw some life into the proceedings.”

“We’ll run off on a bus, like in _the Graduate_ ,” she said. “Stan can meet us at the bus station. Then we go back to our lives like nothing weird happened, and never explain a thing to anybody.”

“Yeah,” he said with a weak laugh. His subway fantasizing came back to him with a vengeance; he looked out the window to buy himself time to think. “Your mother will love that.”

“She’d kill us. At this point it would be a mercy.”

Katherine was driving Peggy up the wall. She told her daughter where to seat guests, what wedding gown she should wear - no sleeveless options allowed - who was to be in the bridal party, even where to order the cake from. When Peggy informed her that Ginsberg was going to be the best man she had screwed up her lips with that special Catholic tilt and said, “I thought Stan had a brother.”

Peggy was neat as a pin in her summer dress but she also looked tired. She flipped listlessly through her magazine, eyes scanning page after page of women smiling, laughing with their bridesmaids, giving flower girls baskets full of pink petals.

“Don’t do any wedding shit in your time off,” he said. “Take a real vacation - be lazy.”

“Oh,” she said suddenly, “that reminds me! I have something to ask you.”

“What?”

“Stan and I decided to rent a beach house for the two weeks I’m off. We were wondering if -”

“I could take the cat?” Ginsberg asked. “Yeah, no problem. I like the little bastard.”

“No, not that. Our neighbor is taking the cat.”

“Then what?”

“We wanted to know if you’d like to come along. The house is a two bedroom - Stan says it’s nice, really close to the water. I haven’t seen it yet.”

He fiddled with his fork. It sounded great. The three of them in some pretty beach town, all day all night, evenings spent sitting around the kitchen table in low warm light, Peggy in a swimsuit, the smell of salt in her hair, on Stan’s skin, nothing in the _way_ -

“No,” he said. “I can’t - I got a… work thing. I have work.”

She closed her magazine and directed her most exasperated look at him. “You are the shittiest liar in the whole world. I don’t know why you bother.”

“God’s honest truth.”

“Blasphemy,” she said. “Look, just say no if you don’t want to go. You don’t need to make something up.”

“That’s not it,” he protested, “I do want to, but -”

“Then come. What’s stopping you? They’ll let you take a vacation - they actually like you there!”

“ _Thanks_ , Peggy,” he said flatly. “I was trying to say: I don’t want to crash the party.”

“Michael,” she said, and leaned forward with her hands clasped in front of her on the table. “You do remember that Stan and I are living together.”

“Yes.”

“So if we want to spend time alone -”

“I get it, I get it,” he said, acknowledging defeat. “You don’t give up, do you?”

She smiled - no, smirked - a satisfied little twist of her mouth. “It’s made me who I am today.”

“Can I get back to you Friday?” he asked. “Or is that not speedy enough for your liking.”

“Good enough,” she said, and checked her wristwatch. “We need to pay; I don’t want to be late for the movie.”

He would have to make something up. Learn the knack of telling a believable falsehood in the next two days, pretend to have a broken leg - or actually break his leg. That would work. He couldn’t go away with them. Not without running his big mouth and ruining everything.

Peggy and Ginsberg had their usual squabble about who should pay with her emerging the victor. On the way out the door she was still reading the bridal magazine, glancing up every few seconds to make sure she wasn’t about to plow into an obstacle. He grabbed it from her and held it behind his back when she tried to retrieve it; he wasn’t tall enough to play keep away over her head.

“I need that,” she said, trying to dart around him. “give it back!”

“No,” he said, “Peggy, no! No more wedding planning. You’ll try to sneak a look at it in the theater.”

“I will not,” she said. “ I wouldn’t even be able to see it.”

“Do you promise?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, acidly. “I can pace myself.”

He doubted that but handed the magazine over. “No more thinking about crinolines, or whatever.”

“You have no idea what that is,” she said, folding the it in two and putting it in her handbag.

“No,” he admitted. “But it’s a lady thing, right?”

He bought the movie tickets since she had paid for lunch and Peggy got a small popcorn. She was physically incapable of seeing a movie without it - even if she didn’t touch it. He thought it was cute, Peggy and her rituals.

The theater was never busy in the middle of the day, so they had their choice of seats. They sat in the middle and Ginsberg whispered some dumb joke to Peggy as the lights turned off; she laughed with her hand over her mouth. He liked to try and make her break up during the serious parts. They were going to get kicked out for it one day.

“Shhh,” she said, “the movie’s starting.” Her fingers curled around his wrist and squeezed once. He leaned against her, the music swelled, and they sat with their shoulders bumping together companionably in the dark.

 

 

“Let me know about the beach,” Peggy said, swinging her purse up to her shoulder and giving him a quick, one armed hug. “Don’t forget.”

“You going to call me tonight?” he asked.

Stan was out of town on some project for _Life_. Peggy had been phoning Ginsberg before she went to bed - the neighborhood still freaked her out when she was alone at night. Talking to him helped her unwind, she said. He knew if she was that bothered by it he ought to stay with her, keep her company. Be close enough that he could actually _do_ something in event of an emergency. But it seemed so inappropriate. She was going to be a married woman soon.

“Probably,” she said. “Unless I fall asleep early.”

She caught at his sleeve as he turned to walk away. “You know it would make us really happy if you said yes.”

He couldn’t understand why that made him flush, the back of his neck heating up. Something about the way she was looking at him so earnestly. Something about the way she said ‘us’. He was never going to get used to her wanting him around. To _anyone_ wanting him around.

“But no pressure,” she said, and smiled at him before disappearing into the sidewalk traffic.

Ginsberg checked the clock and then the wristwatch sitting on his bedside table, but it was no use: it remained 1:30 in the morning no matter what he did.

He gave up and got out of bed. It was too late to be taking a sleeping pill without being groggy all day tomorrow - but at this point he didn’t have much choice. Better five or six hours of medicated sleep than none at all.

Ginsberg had two active prescriptions sitting in his medicine cabinet; a half-used bottle of sleeping pills and a nearly-full one of a mild sedative. He hadn’t needed to take those in months, but kept them just in case. Every two weeks he checked in with a shrink - nice lady, had an office in Manhattan - even when he felt like he didn’t need to. Especially then.

He was careful. He didn’t used to be. Once upon a time he would jump into anything, all heart and guts. A few bumps, a scrape here and there - what did it matter. The rush was worth it. God, he missed that.

He watched television while he waited for the medication to kick in. One of the benefits of living alone was that he could wander all over the apartment in the middle of the night without waking anyone up. That and not making his bed.

His father hadn’t wanted him to move out at all. It was past due, as far as Ginsberg was concerned. He had needed help, yes. But he needed privacy, too.

Of course, the downside of living alone was that he was _alone_. He looked wistfully around his tiny apartment - the messy bedroom, the coffee table covered in his freelancing work, the desk by the window that he’d crammed in so he could have somewhere to sit and write. It supported a typewriter and a couple of limp houseplants. He kept the letters that Sandy wrote him in the top drawer. The kid was living in Ohio with his sister and taking night classes to make up for not graduating from highschool. Floyd sent the occasional postcard Ginsberg’s way - girls in bikinis and shit that he probably thought was hilarious - and they were in there as well.

It wasn’t a step up from his Pop’s place so much as it was a lateral move. Same cramped conditions, same salvaged furniture. The best view he had was a parking lot and the windows leaked every time it rained. But it was his.

It would have been nice to have company, that was all. On nights like this one, it would have been nice.

He thought about Peggy, also spending a solitary night, and wondered if she put the T.V. on for company or just went straight to bed, sprawling across it and enjoying having the whole thing to herself for once. Stan was back on Friday.

And then they were off again, and he was - here.

He didn’t have to be. They’d invited him, they wanted him to go, but -

Ginsberg passed a hand over his face, stifling a yawn. The pills were beginning their good work.

What if he went? Would he be torturing himself if he did? Seeing them together set off a chain reaction in his head. He got an ache in his chest. It wasn’t jealousy - fuck, no. He wanted them to be happy together forever, until they were withered old people bitching at each other from matching wheelchairs. They deserved that.

No, he knew what it was, that ache, that _longing_ \- he knew, and he was afraid that it would come out somehow, pour out of his mouth, spill out of his ears - staining everything and driving away his best friends, who didn’t want anything like that from him. Who never would.

Wanting them had become part of his DNA. He couldn’t get rid of it if he tried. But he could stay quiet about it, he _had_ stayed quiet about it, and if he went on vacation with them he -

He was overthinking it, as always. It was time to go to bed or he would be of no use to anyone in the morning. His decision could wait until then.

Ginsberg’s bed was far more inviting than it had been twenty minutes before. He burrowed in, finally comfortable, the sheets pulled up to his neck, and drifted off slowly. The pills typically eased him into a sleep too deep for dreams, but not this time. He dreamt of a long stretch of blue sky and sparkling water, of hot sand beneath his feet and the sun on his skin. On the beach someone awaited him, arms held out in welcome.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

He thought he would have to sell Vickie on the idea a bit, maybe butter her up first. She was too straightforward to be susceptible to flattery, as he discovered - she didn’t even bother looking up from her typewriter. “What do you want?” she asked, applying correction fluid to a spelling mistake.

“To take the next two weeks off,” he said. “I know it’s last minute, but my friends want me to go on this trip -”

“Yeah, fine,” she said. “Go ahead. John can cover for you.”

“Oh,” he said with a blink. “Uh. Thanks.”

He called Peggy at lunch to tell her the good news and couldn’t stop a grin, wide and totally stupid, from appearing on his face. It was just that she sounded so pleased. “This is going to be _great_ ,” she told him. “Make sure to pack some swimming trunks.”

“I don’t have any,” he said.

Luisa frowned, disapproval all over her face. _Dumbass_ , she mouthed silently. He turned his back on her.

 

 

They got stuck in traffic leaving the city, but that was to be expected. Stan was driving with all the windows down to let out some of the warmth, except there was no way to catch a breeze parked like they were. Ginsberg could see the air shimmer ahead of them as heat rose off the blacktop.

“Is there an accident?” he asked, craning his neck to try and see past the crowd of tailgates.

“Not that I can tell,” Stan said. “Probably just somebody stalled up ahead.”

“I wish I could get out and walk around,” said Ginsberg. “It’s so fucking hot.”

“How?” asked Stan. “There’s no room out there - it’s bumper to bumper.”

“Why did we put the cooler in the trunk?” Peggy asked, fanning herself with one hand. The back of her shirt was damp and her skin shone. “That was stupid. It has cold drinks in it.”

“Anyone want to play twenty questions?” Ginsberg asked hopefully. Neither of them responded so he slumped back against his seat, imagining himself in the Arctic, surrounded by icebergs and freezing wind. It didn’t help.

“I’m jumping in the water the second we get there,” Peggy said. She twisted around to look at Ginsberg, leaning over her backrest. “You did bring some swimming trunks, right?”

“No,” he said. “I told you I didn’t have any.”

“Oh, for - we’ll find somewhere in town where you can get some.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Am I seeing a mirage,” Stan said suddenly, sitting up straight, “or did traffic just move?”

It was no mirage - they were moving, cars inching forward one by one, and then faster - quick enough to relieve some of the stifling heat. “ _Thank_ you,” Ginsberg said, as soon as Stan was able to really step on the gas.

Peggy fell asleep on the way there, curled sideways on the seat with her head pillowed on her arm. Her seatbelt was all twisted up. It wasn’t quiet in the car - the radio was on, and Stan and Ginsberg had been talking.

Stan caught his eye by the way of the rearview mirror, and yeah - it was a good thing that they were leaving the city behind for awhile.

They drove into Jersey and then through Belmar, passing a welcome to town sign with a seashell on it, ice cream shops and old victorian-style hotels, and a marina with some boats bobbing around in the water. The boardwalk went all along the beach, lined with streetlights. Colorful umbrellas dotted the sand and beyond that was the ocean, creeping gently up towards the sunbathers. He could smell brine.

Their house was located almost on the beach itself, far down where the sand thinned and grass grew knee high. There was nothing very close to it; about a block away there was a cluster of simple cabins that looked like they had been built for the purposes of rental, plainly designed and without decoration. This house, though, was personal: it was painted a weather-worn white and had a brilliant red roof that sloped low over the front porch. The windows were old but also in good repair and there was a chimney out back. Someone had planted a garden of tall yellow lilies out front and bordered it with chunks of light brown rock. They had also encrusted the mailbox with seashells.

Peggy woke up as soon as they stopped moving. She took a minute to get going and stretched her arms above her head. “Oh,” she said, smiling, “it _is_ pretty. I hope it’s nice inside.”

“Would I bring you to a dump?” Stan asked, as he got out to go open the trunk. They carried the bags and groceries inside while Peggy went ahead and explored.

There were frilly pink-striped curtains over the kitchen windows. Ginsberg opened them before he packed the groceries away. The kitchen was on the side of the house and faced some sandy, grass covered hills rather than the beach proper. He could hear seagulls screaming.

He went into the living room after he was done and walked around, picking up tchotchkes and looking at the pictures on the walls - two watercolor landscapes and a print of a victorian lady in a fancy dress, the famous one where she was tending a bar. The floor was hardwood and bare except for a round green rug.

The bathroom he checked out next. It had the most amazing wallpaper, bright blue with tropical fish swimming all over it. Someone had marked a strip near the door with short, straight lines in a column - he realised they were measurements, each one added for a kid’s growth spurt. There were no towels on the rack so he got some from the hall linen closet.

“This is our bedroom,” said Peggy, walking out after he was done fixing up the bathroom. “You can have the other one.”

“That better not be a kid’s room,” he said, and went inside to make sure.

It wasn’t. In all things were pretty normal - a bookshelf filled with paperbacks, a bed with checkered sheets on it and a short dresser under the window. He got his suitcase from the living room and put his clothes away.

Peggy and Stan were sitting on the couch when he came into the living room. He had his arm around her shoulders and she was tucked into his side - they looked so right together that it was painful.

“Want to go to the beach?” Stan asked.

“Sure,” said Peggy. “But first Michael has to go buy a swimsuit.”

“Come on,” Ginsberg groaned. “I don’t want - I got skinny legs, okay? And what do I even need them for?”

“Can’t go swimming in your jeans, man,” Stan said.

“I didn’t want to go swimming,” said Ginsberg. “I was just gonna - wade.”

In fact he didn’t know how, but he was embarrassed to admit it. What person his age didn’t know how to swim. Even children could swim.

“You’re at the shore, for Christ’s sake,” said Stan. “Are you really going to miss out on the ocean waves, the fresh air and as much pollution as the state of New Jersey can provide?”

“That’s appealing,” muttered Ginsberg.

They forced him into a swimwear store just off the boardwalk. He grabbed the first thing he saw that looked to be in his size and headed for the cashier; Peggy made him go back and get something that was _actually_ in his size. Mission accomplished.

They took a circuitous route back, meandering along the Boardwalk and investigating the shops and gaming arcades. There was a little girl having a protracted battle with a game of whack-a-mole inside one of them. When the attendant handed her a prize she jumped up and down.

It was cooler, out by the sea. Not so muggy and much more pleasant to be out walking.

He changed into the trunks in his bedroom and put on a t-shirt as well. Peggy was in the hallway when he stepped out, crouched down putting a beach towel into a bag. Her bathingsuit was a one piece halter top. The part that tied around her neck was white and the rest of it was dark blue.

“See, you look fine,” she said. “I don’t know what you were worried about.”

“Thanks,” he said. “You’ve conquered my insecurities.”

She laughed and got up. Her legs were slim and pale and bare - he made himself look away.

Peggy and Stan went into the water right away but Ginsberg walked along the shoreline, watching the waves lap around his feet. It felt weird to be barefoot anywhere but inside his apartment. If he tried to go without shoes in New York he’d end up with a hypodermic in his foot.

There were all sorts of tiny shells along the waterline, pointed and flat and swirled with tan and cream. He saw sea glass, too, smooth as a marble and bottle-green. If he had pockets he would have picked some up.

A crowd of miniscule crabs was scuttling around the edge of the water. They were so small three of them could have fit into the palm of his hand. He thought maybe they were babies. Neat little things, right up until one of them pinched him because he was stupid enough to try and touch it. He looked around but no one had noticed.

The water was so fucking blue. He walked in until it was up around his waist and scanned the horizon, shading his eyes with a hand. It went on and on forever.

“Aren’t you hot?” Peggy said to him once he found her on the beach.

“What do you mean?” he asked, sitting down next to her on her towel. She was laying back, her wet hair spread out behind her. There was sand stuck to her arm. He brushed it off.

“In the shirt,” she said. “Why don’t you take it off?”

He looked away from her, down to his folded legs on the towel. His mood dipped very quickly; he struggled to regain his equilibrium. It was so nice out here and he wanted it to stay that way. You know why, he thought.

She bumped her knee against his until he looked at her again, and smiled apologetically when he did. He gave a brief nod, acknowledging it.

“You trying to get me naked, Peggy?” he asked, and she smacked him on the shoulder.

Stan came up, absolutely dripping wet. He shook himself off like a dog because he was an asshole.

“You wimps,” he said over their protests. “It’s just water.”

“Peggy’s trying to undress me,” Ginsberg said.

“She does that,” said Stan.

Peggy gifted them both with an indignant glare that only got more so when Stan grabbed her by the hand and pulled her reluctantly to her feet.

“C’mon,” he said. “No lazing around. Get back in with me.”

He didn’t wait around for an answer, just scooped her up and started back towards the water. “Why are you such a jackass?” she said, grumpy, but put her arms around his neck. “Are you coming?” she said to Ginsberg over Stan’s shoulder.

“In a minute.” He sat back and watched Stan walk and then run towards the waves with Peggy in his arms. She shrieked when he dumped her in, more aggrieved than startled, before pulling him down with her.

 

 

They ate a late dinner that day, sitting out on the porch with their plates resting on folding card tables. It was a roast chicken and potatoes that all three of them pitched in to make and store-bought lemonade. The food was really good and Ginsberg was surprised at how hungry he was. Must have been all that running around at the beach.

They didn’t go back inside right away. The sky was too filled with stars and the night air too clean and crisp; they were dog-tired but stayed out talking, telling stories from work, laughing at stupid jokes. When someone started up fireworks they went quiet and watched those bursts of color - like flowers across the velvet-dark of the sky - without a word.

Except once, when Ginsberg leaned close to Peggy and whispered, “Thank you for making me come along.” She didn’t answer, but he could tell by her smile that she understood.

 

 

Ginsberg didn’t set an alarm but woke early in the morning all the same. He made a pot of coffee and sat on the front steps to watch the sun rise over the water. There were a few people out on the beach who had the same idea. He could see them walking back and forth, small and blurred from distance.

When he went back in the house was still silent. He thought about making breakfast but he didn’t know what anyone else would want, so he watched television instead until the morning news came on and Peggy walked into the room in her nightgown.

“I thought you were off the news this week,” she said, sitting down next to him.

“I hate feeling like I’m ignoring things,” he said. “What am I supposed to do, turn my back on what’s happening in the world?”

“You do know that you can’t do anything about it -”

“Okay, Peggy -”

“- _and_ I don’t want you worrying yourself sick. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“It’s a local news show,” he said dryly, and pointed to the T.V. “They’re bringing out a goat that does tricks. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Oh,” she said. “Good.” She crossed her legs and her foot brushed the side of his bare leg - he had been sleeping in his boxers - and he twitched at the contact.

“Your feet are _freezing_ ,” he said. “How? It’s eighty degrees out there already.”

“Cold feet, warm heart,” she said, and tucked all ten of her chilly toes under his thigh.

“That’s not how that expression goes,” he said, but he let her continue to leech heat off him. They were still sitting that way when Stan woke up.

“Are we cooking anything?” he asked from the kitchen. “Or should we go out for breakfast?”

“Whichever one takes less effort,” Peggy said, slouching down against the armrest.

There were still dishes in the sink from last night’s dinner and Ginsberg could see Stan eyeing them, evaluating. “Going out,” he decided aloud, and went back to the bedroom to get dressed.

They found a hotel restaurant that had a buffet for breakfast. There were long tables of food, decorated with so many flowers it looked like a Hawaiian luau. Chafing dishes filled with fancy eggs and huge plates of fruit, about ten different kinds of juice to drink - there was even a table just for shellfish, which seemed like a weird thing to eat at this time of day. It all looked very complicated and very expensive.

“How much do you figure this is going to set us back?” he asked, and felt a rush of embarrassment when Stan and Peggy just looked at him. He was the only one there who had to worry about money.

“I’ll pay,” said Stan. “Don’t worry about it.”

Ginsberg frowned. He wasn’t a charity case. “No,” he said. “I got it. Buying breakfast won’t break the bank.”

“I’m not trying to buy you a car, Ginsberg. It’s just a meal. Let me pay.”

When he tried to speak again Peggy put her hand on his arm, gentling him, and gave him a look of silent reproach. So he let it drop, but it bothered him while waiting in the lineup, while dishing up his plate, while walking back to their table. Even the ordinary sounds of eating that were around them - clinking glasses, cutlery scraping against china, soft conversation - seemed classier than usual. He looked at a woman sitting at the table across from theirs; she had on a necklace that probably cost more than his apartment was worth. He was wearing an old pair of jeans that he picked up at Goodwill.

He picked at his food for a minute, appetite muted. Peggy and Stan had paid for the gas coming out here, and most of the groceries, too. “I should have offered you a third.”

Stan had been drinking; now he put his glass down and gave Ginsberg a quizzical look. “What?”

“For the house - the rent. I should be paying a third of it. Three people, split the cost three ways.”

“No one asked for that.”

“Doesn’t matter. I should have offered.”

“Okay,” Stan said. “But we don’t need it, and I don’t see the problem here. How did this turn into a crisis for you? Nobody even brought it up.”

Ginsberg cut his eggs into pieces with his butter knife. “I don’t want to be the poor relation.”

“No one’s doing anything for you out of pity,” Stan said. “Frankly, you’re way too annoying for that.”

“True,” Peggy piped up, with a sage nod. “That is true.” She hid a smile behind her glass of OJ, and Ginsberg felt his mouth turn upwards in spite of himself.

“Well,” he said, and picked up his fork. The food was getting cold. “I feel much better now.”

 

 

Peggy changed into her bathing suit as soon as they got back to the house and headed out for a swim. Stan and Ginsberg went down to the wharf instead because Stan wanted to paint the boats. They sat on the end of a pier while he sketched their surroundings on thick white paper. He was going to fill them in with watercolors afterwards.

“You ever miss doing that for a living?” Ginsberg asked.

“Sometimes,” Stan said. Since going to work with Joyce he kept all his art for home. There wasn’t much call for it at the magazine. “You miss being a copywriter?”

“I miss feeling like I was going places,” he said. “I’ll never have a paycheck like that again.”

“Is that what your little domestic drama this morning was all about?”

“Maybe,” Ginsberg said. He sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the pier and trailed his toes through the water. His shoes were beside him, socks balled up inside.

“It’s not just about the paycheck, though,’ said Stan. He looked thoughtfully down at his drawing pad, erasing a line. Ginsberg could see the boats and the ocean being slowly transferred onto the paper. “Or not for me, it isn’t.”

“Yeah,” said Ginsberg, wistfully, “but it’s so much easier to care about morals when you have money, too.”

“Sure. But advertising - you’ve gotta admit, it was a terrible place to work.”

“Crazy-making,” said Ginsberg, and then schooled his face into the most guileless possible expression when Stan turned to glare at him.

“Not funny.”

“A little bit funny.” Ginsberg elbowed Stan in the side, leaning into him. “Admit it. That was pretty good.”

“Nope,” said Stan, and gave him a shove that sent him toppling right into the water.

“What the _hell_ ,” Ginsberg sputtered after Stan fished him out, the both of them soaked through like a couple of drowned rats. His hair was hanging stringy and wet in front of his eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d go flying off like that,” Stan said. “Can you breathe okay?”

“Yes,” Ginsberg said with a wheeze. He had been so intent on communicating the humor of his stupid joke that he hadn’t been sitting in a very well balanced way. At least he only took a little water in, panicking as it closed over his head. The inside of his mouth tasted like salt.

“I thought you could fucking swim,” said Stan.

“I never said I could.”

“You never said you _couldn’t_ ,” said Stan, and brushed his sopping hair away from his face.

It should have been an entirely platonic gesture, almost parental - but there was a strange tenderness to the way Stan did it, his fingers gentle on Ginsberg’s skin and in his hair. The back of his neck tingled with awakened nerves and they stared at each other. Stan’s face was so serious that Ginsberg kept expecting a joke, a lightening of the mood, but it never came.

He wanted to say something, and he had no idea what.

“Uh,” he said, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Should we go back? Or stay here? Or -”

His babbling snapped Stan out of it. “Right, we should go back,” he said. “Unless you want to sit here in wet clothes.”

“No,” said Ginsberg, and got to his feet. His soggy clothes felt like they weighed twenty pounds. “Let’s go - ah, fuck. I ruined your drawing.”

He picked up the drawing pad and handed it over. The paper was wrinkled and bent from all their splashing around.

“I can redo it,” Stan said, and they left the dock behind. A family going by in a station wagon gave them a funny look as they walked down the road together, but that was about it.

“I’m going to teach you how to swim,” said Stan, decisively, as they came within sight of the house.

“No,” said Ginsberg. That was a misadventure waiting to happen. No.

“You that afraid of the water?” Stan asked curiously, looking intently at him. Ginsberg tried his damndest to lie effectively.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s one of those … whaddya call ‘em - phobias.” He checked on Stan out of the corner of his eye to see if he bought it.

He looked suspicious, but Peggy appeared in the doorway and called out their names. She was in a long white cotton dress and had her hair up in a towel. There were some light tanlines on her shoulders where the straps of her swimsuit had been. “What happened to you two?” she asked, descending the steps with her skirt in her hands.

“I tried to drown Ginsberg,” Stan said.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, come inside. I made lunch.”

 

 

Sometime around midnight he kicked off his sheets and got out of bed. He was too restless for sleep, helpless in the face of his unquiet thoughts. The hush - broken only by the sound of waves breaking in the distance - unsettled him. He was used to the distraction of noise, of falling asleep to the rhythm of traffic outside his window. In New York there was always something to listen to.

He put a pair of pants on and crept out to go get his shoes. Peggy and Stan were safely asleep in their bed so he was as quick and quiet as he could be. Ever a city boy, he made sure to lock the door behind him.

He walked down to the beach and then along the shore, looking out over the sea. The water was black but shining. The vivid blues of the daytime hours were gone away now; at night the sea was mysterious and endless. At night he understood how sailors could dream up sea serpents and mermaids.

There was a party happening far down the beach. He could tell by the glow of their firepit and the shadows he saw moving in front of it. Hopefully nobody would try and swim drunk. The hotels were still hopping, too, and some restaurants - but it was deserted in their little corner. He took advantage of it and wandered to his hearts content. For a while he skipped rocks incompetently across the water - tick tick _splash_ \- and then he just watched the surf ebb and flow, the tempo as regular as a drumbeat.

He lay down on his back and let the sky fill up his eyes. It was so _big_.

When he got back to the house he had sand in his hair and inside his shoes. He stopped to shake them out, standing on the bottom step in his bare feet.

“Hi,” a voice said, and he fumbled the shoe he was holding.

“What -”

“Sorry,” Peggy said. She leaned over the railing so that he could see her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“What are you doing up?” he asked.

She was sitting on the porch swing in her bathrobe. “I needed a drink,” she said, and held up a glass of water as he joined her. The swing creaked under their combined weight. “Where did you go to?”

“Out for a walk,” he said. “I was having trouble sleeping - you know, the usual.”

“Did you bring your pills?” she asked, and pushed them back and forth with her feet. The movement was soothing.

“Yeah, I think I did,” Ginsberg answered. “But I don’t want to bother with them. I’ll fall asleep eventually.”

Peggy’s face went thoughtful, a little line appearing between her eyebrows. He wanted to smooth it out with his thumb. She didn’t speak for a time and they sat peacefully, side by side, rocking the swing together. After a few minutes she stood up and held out her hand to him. “Come on,” she said. “I have an idea.”

When he didn’t move she wiggled her fingers at him expectantly.

He let her pull him through the house and into her bedroom. Stan was asleep on his side with the blankets bunched up around his waist. She let go of Ginsberg and shoved at his shoulder with both hands. “Move over. Michael can’t sleep.”

Stan glanced back at them - at Peggy kneeling on the bed, at Ginsberg standing frozen beside her. And then he -

\- just shuffled over, like it was nothing.

Peggy climbed in behind him and motioned for Ginsberg to follow her. He looked at their silhouettes in the moonlight, curled up on one side of the bed, making room for him. He took a deep breath.

“Pants,” whispered Peggy, and he nodded, sliding them down his legs with unsteady hands. They were covered with sand, he couldn’t get into bed like that.

“Okay?” he said, putting one knee on the mattress.

“Okay,” said Stan, and reached past her to pull him in by the arm.

His heart was pounding as he got under the covers. Peggy knew, somehow - she read his expression in the dark, or felt him stiffen up - and she put her hand on his chest, fingers spread wide. Five points of contact, like a star.

“Shhh,” she said. “Just relax.”

He closed his eyes and let the tide pull him under.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

It was the morning sun that woke him. The light fell across the bed, golden and soft, warming their entangled limbs and luring him from his sleep. He fought it initially - tightened his arms around Peggy’s waist, moved in closer, and buried his face in her hair.

Wait.

His eyes opened reluctantly. He was definitely in a bed, and he was definitely sharing it with Peggy and Stan. They had migrated in the night, rolling together in a heap. Ginsberg was tucked up against Peggy’s back, one leg between hers and holding on to her like she would drift away if he didn’t. Stan had an arm thrown over both of them. Ginsberg could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, his messy morning hair on the pillow.

Their proximity was creating a problem. A - he bit his lip when Peggy shifted against him - very _pressing_ problem.

He made an honest attempt at an escape without waking her. As delicately as he could he slipped his arms from about her waist - not easy, since she was lying on one of them - and tried to free his leg. That was where he ran into trouble. They were all tangled up together like a boy scout knot and when he moved she squeezed her thighs around him, hooking her foot around his ankle.

“Don’t,” she murmured. Her eyes stayed closed.

“Don’t _what_ ,” he said and kept his voice low. Stan was still asleep.

“Move,” she said, and her whole body seemed to relax at once as she cuddled into the mattress - and into him. He twisted his hips away from her but not quickly enough.

Peggy raised her head from the pillow slowly and propped herself up on one elbow. Now her eyes were open wide; now she was looking at him with a curiously neutral expression. Her thighs locked around his leg again - a muscle tremor? Or was it deliberate? Why would it be deliberate. Jesus, what was wrong with him.

He thought he could feel something like lace on the skin of his thigh, and the heat of her beyond that. Just like that he imagined putting his mouth there, the way she would squirm when he teased her. He was _sure_ the shame of it showed in his face.

Peggy pressed her lips together and looked down. Her face, already rosy from slumber, was rapidly coloring. She raised her eyebrows high.

“I am so fucking sorry,” he said, desperately. “I swear it’s only a physical reaction. It doesn’t mean anything.”

She tried to answer him - could be to reassure him, could be to tell him to get the hell out of her bed - but it got swallowed up in a giggle that bubbled up out of nowhere. After which there was no stopping her; she buried her face in the pillow and laughed until she shook.

The commotion kicked Stan out of dreamland. He turned over leisurely and rubbed at his eyes like a little kid. “What’d I miss?” he asked, looking them both over in a lazy way.

Peggy popped up with a grin. “He -” she said, and then decided to be decorous and whispered it in Stan’s ear instead with her hand cupped against her mouth.

“Seriously?” Stan drawled with an amused smirk. “Having pleasant dreams, Ginzo?” His eyes travelled up and down Ginsberg’s body, from the soles of his feet to his collarbones. It made him go cold and then hot in rapid succession. He had _no fucking idea_ what to do with a look like that.

So he grabbed a pillow to hide the affected area and scuttled backwards, away from them. “You are not funny. You - I’m going back to my room.”

“Oh, come on,” Peggy said, but he had already gotten out of bed and halfway through the door. “You big baby!” she called as he shut it behind him, still clutching his protective pillow.

 

 

Ginsberg spent most of the morning lying on his bed pretending to read a Dashiell Hammett he had found on the bookshelf. He was too stirred up to concentrate on it.

His feelings were nothing but a dirty joke, a shitty blue movie playing to an empty house. They were probably laughing at him - no, they weren’t, of course they weren’t. They were his friends. And he didn’t want to be treated like he was made of glass. He wanted jokes and arguments and the usual push and pull of any relationship. He liked that they weren’t afraid to bust his chops.

The truth was that they had left that bed and everything that happened in it behind them. It only mattered to him. He was the one misinterpreting completely ordinary gestures of affection because he wanted them both so badly.

At just about noon Stan opened the door and leaned in. “Peggy wants to know if you’re done sulking yet.”

“Yeah,” Ginsberg said, throwing down the book, thoroughly sick of himself.

They ate hotdogs from a stand on the boardwalk for lunch and then gave one of the arcades a spin. Stan kicked Ginsberg’s ass at air hockey while Peggy played pinball. The flashing lights were distracting - more than once he caught himself watching the ball bounce around rather than keeping his eyes on his own game.

“Peggy, you’ve gotta tilt it,” he said, and Stan scored on him again.

“Go away,” she told him. “I’m the one playing.” She looked back at him as she said it and lost her turn.

He tried to win her a stuffed bear from the claw machine. “That’s okay,” she said after he dropped the toy back down into a heap of its cheaply-stitched brethren for the third time. “I’m not sure what I’d do with it, anyway.”

They finished out the day sitting on a patio and drinking a pitcher of some boozy concoction. It looked like fruit juice but it kicked going down. There were slices of orange and chunks of pineapple at the bottom of the jug.

“You ever go out to Coney Island as a kid?” Stan asked.

“Only for the beach,” Peggy said. “Theme parks aren’t really my style.”

“I like them,” said Ginsberg. “I used to go there on weekends just to look around.” His father had taken him six months after they got to New York. It had been the most amazing thing - the colorful games, the huge, noisy rides - everywhere something new and exciting to see. In that first uncertain year after being released from the asylum he had gone up often. The place was a comfort to him, even if it was only nostalgia.

“I like it here better,” Peggy said.

“It is prettier,” said Stan, looking out over the shining water. The sun was starting to set, painting the bottoms of the clouds with a vivid pink.

“And farther away from my mother,” Peggy said, and raised her glass for a toast.

 

 

Speak of the devil, they said, and that evening Katherine called like she had been conjured up.

It was Ginsberg who answered the phone, because Stan had deputized him to keep Peggy from contacting her former workplace to see how things were going and he thought it might be them. But no, it was Katherine - “Michael,” she said, voice brisk with distaste. “Is my daughter there?”

Her daughter was sitting in Stan’s lap on the couch. Ginsberg shook his head and took a step back when she leaned over, reaching for the phone.

“Nah,’ he said, and sat down on the armrest with the phone balanced on his knee. “She went someplace with Stan. A bar, I think?”

“Oh,” said Katherine. “Well, tell her -”

“I can’t handle them anymore,” said Ginsberg. “Bars. It’s the noise, you know? Not good for my head.”

“Right.”

“That’s the one thing I miss about the institution. It was real quiet, most of the time. Except for the screaming. But those guys usually got taken away pretty quick.”

Katherine knew about him, though he didn’t know exactly how. He suspected Peggy of telling Anita and Anita of telling Katherine, back when everything was fresh and hurting. He didn’t blame anyone for it, but Katherine looked at him like he was a dirty stray dog Peggy was giving scraps to. That thing has mange, he could practically see her thinking. Get it out of the house.

That was unwarranted. At the very least he was some kind of housepet.

And Peggy was always so sad after speaking with her. He didn't like that much.

“Right,” said Katherine again, a touch sharp this time. “Could you tell her I called?” She spoke very slowly, as though speaking to a child or an idiot.

“Sure thing, Kathy,” Ginsberg promised her, aggressively cheerful. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stan muffle a laugh against Peggy’s shoulder.

“ _Katherine_.”

“Well, _shalom_ ,” he said, to put a cherry on top of the sundae, and hung up.

“Bad,” said Peggy. She smiled softly at him from her seat in her fiance’s lap.

“You love it,” he said, and grinned at her.

 

 

When Ginsberg opened his eyes to the pitch-dark he was confused; he hadn’t been having a nightmare, the room was pleasantly cool, the bed soft and comfortable - there was no reason for him to be up this time of night. Had there been a noise? Was it outside? He sat up to investigate and heard it again - not outside the house, but on the other side of the wall. Stan, laughing.

He thought he knew Stan’s laugh but he didn’t know this one. Peggy’s laugh was always surprised, like it had hit her unexpected, but Stan’s was casual, wholehearted, sometimes teasing. He never held himself back from doing something that felt good. He’d lose it over the most idiotic things, until there were tears in his eyes, and not feel embarrassed afterwards. This was new. It was low and fond and - naked, somehow. Following that - he wasn’t sure, something rattling? Tapping against the wall? And then Peggy said - she said fuck, _not_ quietly, and made a wordless sound of pleasure.

The walls were not thick.

Oh, thought Ginsberg, and sat there with his brainless, useless heart pulsating to the tips of his fingers.

He wanted to be disgusted or annoyed, like a normal person. It would have solved a whole lot of problems at once. He wanted to plug his ears, and he wanted to listen forever.

What he did do was go into the bathroom, take off his clothes and get into the shower. The water was lukewarm. He gritted his teeth and yanked the tap all the way to the cold side.

The spray was like ice but he stayed under it for as long as he could bear. His skin was all over goosebumps when he got out. He didn’t bother toweling off, just pulled his clothes back on and walked out into the hallway frozen and still dripping.

Stan bumped into him in the hall. He was coming out of the bedroom in his underwear. Ginsberg looked at the ceiling and hated God.

“Whoa,” Stan said as they collided, and put out a hand to steady himself. He frowned when he felt Ginsberg’s chilly skin. “I guess you find it hotter than I do.”

It wasn’t hot. There was a strong wind coming off the ocean and the temperature had been dropping since the sun set.

“Yeah,” said Ginsberg, and stepped around Stan with his eyes on the floor, careful not to touch him.

 

 

Ginsberg twitched the blinds open. The sky was still gray with low, heavy clouds and raindrops speckled the window. “That isn’t stopping anytime soon,” he said, and closed them again.

“We had nice weather all week,” said Stan. He was reading a book on the couch. “Can’t complain.”

“I can complain about anything,” Ginsberg reassured him. He walked over to the television and idly changed channels. There wasn’t anything interesting on. Commercials, game shows, a couple of fuzzy channels it wouldn’t pick up. Nothing to do but wait

“You don’t feel like painting?” he asked as he sat down next to Stan. There was a canvas all sketched up sitting in the corner of the room; it was a small one, for portability.

“The light’s shit,” said Stan. “Do you ever do it anymore?”

“Do what?”

“Paint.”

“No,” said Ginsberg. “I gave it up once I came home. It was really only for the therapy.”

“Huh,” said Stan. “That’s a shame. You weren’t bad.”

“Really?” Ginsberg said, perking up.

“Well, you weren’t _good_.” Stan smirked at him. “But you had some interesting ideas.”

Ginsberg shrugged. “If you say so. I might take it up again for fun, but I don’t think it could be more than a hobby for me. Not like writing.”

“How’s that going?”

“It’s going,” said Ginsberg. “I don’t know what else to say about it. I write something, I send it out, it gets rejected - there’s not much to report.”

“Your stuff’s weird,” said Stan. He had put down his book. “It’ll take some time to find a place to land.”

“If it ever does.”

“It will. You’re a better writer than you were a painter.”

“Thanks,” said Ginsberg, smiling. He wasn’t sure when his writing had changed from being something he did to help keep his brain from eating itself to something that actually mattered. Now he had hope for it; imagined a future for it. That made it harder to show it to anyone. He couldn’t pretend the validation didn’t feel great.

“You ever think of writing a children’s book?”

“Who would read that to their kids?”

“No, I’m serious here. I think you should.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to illustrate one.”

“Really?” said Ginsberg. “That doesn’t seem like your thing.”

“It could be my thing,” said Stan, his voice dry. “You don’t know. I’m not talking about fucking _See Dick Run_ , here. I mean something unusual.”

“Ah,” said Ginsberg. “I understand now where I come in.”

“Okay, asshole,” said Stan. “Maybe I’d just like to work with you again.”

“I do have something,” Ginsberg said, as a warm, pleasing feeling stole over him. It was hiding under his bed or in his desk, forgotten - there was so much to do, after he had been released. He had stepped out of his life for six months. His little alien story. He never did show it to Stan as planned. “Though I have to edit it first.”

There was a clatter at the door. It was Peggy, back with the liquor. When Ginsberg let her in she was trying to hold a newspaper over her head and the bags at the same time.

“How much did you get?” he asked as he took a bag from her.

“Hey, I didn’t know what anyone wanted.” She gave first Ginsberg and then Stan a pointed look. “ _Somebody_ should have gotten out of bed and gone with me.”

She brought back beer, a couple bottles of wine and one of scotch. They drank the wine with dinner that night - salmon cooked in lemon and pepper. It was white wine, apparently that went with fish.

“Should we drive into town, go see a late movie?” Stan asked once the dishes were done. The rain hadn’t let up all day, so they didn’t leave the house.

“Will movie theaters be open at this hour?” asked Ginsberg. “This isn’t New York.”

“That doesn’t mean they close at _eight_ , Ginsberg,” said Stan.

Peggy picked up her glass of wine and headed into the living room. “You can if you want,” she said. “But I don’t feel like going out.”

“I found some puzzles and board games in the hall closet the other day,” said Ginsberg. He put the second bottle of wine on the coffee table. They had finished the first. He wasn’t that into it, himself, but it tasted okay. “What about those?”

They had checkers, a chess set that was missing a few pieces and that none of them knew how to play, and Monopoly - the clear winner. They moved the coffee table aside and set it up in the middle of the floor. By the time he had established his third house on Park Place the wine was all gone and Ginsberg was moving past tipsy and into drunk. He had always been a light drinker - especially for someone who used to work in advertising. _Because_ he used to work in advertising. Even Peggy could outdo him, and was proving that by going straight for the scotch.

“What?” she said, when Stan looked at her. “We’re on vacation.”

Ginsberg opted for beer. Didn’t light and dark liquors not go together? Something like that.

He twirled the empty bottle between his hands while Peggy strategized, glaring at the board. She was behind on account of being a jailbird. “Where are you going on your honeymoon?” he asked.

She looked at him quickly. “Is this a distraction tactic?”

“No,” he said, laughing. “I was just wondering, is all.”

“We haven’t decided,” she said, brushing a few strands of hair out of her face. “Wait, maybe we did. I can’t even remember. Did we, Stan?”

Stan was lying on his back next to her. “Don’t care, baby, as long as I’m with you.”

“You dork,” she said, scornfully, and leaned down to kiss him.

“I’m going to miss you guys,” said Ginsberg, and wished he could go back in time to take the words back. He didn’t mean to - he shouldn’t have said that. He eyed his empty beer bottle, trying to work out if it was plausible to blame the booze.

“It’s not for almost a year, yet,” said Peggy. “And we’ll only be gone for a week.”

“No, I meant something else. Never mind - ignore me.”

“But now I’m curious,” said Peggy. “Come on, spill. No fair, keeping secrets.”

“I have lots of secrets,” he said, and thought to himself, like how I want to watch the two of you have sex. For a single terrified moment he was afraid he might have said it out loud, but no one threw the board at him so he was okay. Peggy was still looking at him; he had to say _something_. Anything. So he told the truth. “I mean that things are going to change. That’s all. They have to - you’re gonna be married.”

That wasn’t good either; another thing he shouldn’t have said. What was that quote, that men should - something about a monster - a monster in the mouth and brain - he was drunk. He was drunk.

Stan gave him a funny look, but he couldn't pinpoint what it meant. “We aren’t going to turn into different people because we had a wedding, Ginzo.”

“I know that,” he said, and before he could open his mouth on another sensitive subject he picked up the dice and handed them to Peggy. “Here, roll. It’s your turn.”

It didn’t take long for her to land on Park Place; he whooped and she cursed him roundly.

“Pay up,” he crowed, triumphant, and held out his hand.

“This is rent gouging,” she said. “You slumlord.”

“This is business,” he said. “And my buildings are in great condition.”

He grabbed at her money pile; she jumped him for it - and swept all the pieces off the board with her leg.

“Peggy, that’s not helping you win,” said Stan, sensibly, so of course no one listened to him.

The struggle was brief and futile. Ginsberg didn’t fight very hard; he couldn’t stop laughing and Peggy took swift advantage. She had him by the wrists and was all but sitting in his lap - until they fell over backwards and she _was_ sitting in his lap, on top of him. The monopoly money was scattered across the floor. He looked up into her face.

Behind her Stan quietly packed up the game and set it aside. And then he just watched - and waited.

Peggy smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, voice cracking like a thirteen year old. She was very close. All he had to do was lean forward, the tiniest bit, and -

He sat up and lifted her gently out of his lap. His head was spinning. “I had too much to drink. I should go lie down.”

“You sure?” she said, concerned, and cupped his overheated cheek with her cool palm. “Are you sick?”

He wanted to turn into that touch more than anything. “I’m fine. I just - I’m gonna lie down.”

“You need any help?” Stan asked as Ginsberg stood, none too steady on his feet.

“No,” said Ginsberg. “I’ll be okay. Don’t get up.”

He staggered down the hall and fell face first into his bed. The sheets were still rumpled because he hadn’t made it that morning. He had been drinking and had been kept up by fevered, unfair dreams the night before; he should have been out like a light. But sleep was a long time coming.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

On Sunday they had guests. Joyce drove up with her girlfriend Rita and they split the day between town and the beach. Peggy’s surplus of alcohol came in handy that evening - they still had beer and scotch left over.

Ginsberg didn’t drink any. He had come way too close to the brink last time.

He sat out on the porch once it started to get dark. The country didn’t interest him to live in but he couldn’t get enough of that view. The same waves had crashed on the same shore before the pilgrims landed, in prehistory, in the time of the dinosaurs. He was starting to enjoy the way it sounded, and knew that he would miss it when they left.

Joyce elbowed open the creaky screen door. She had a beer bottle in each hand and a joint clenched between her teeth.

“No thanks,” he said when she tried to pass him one by the neck. “I went over my limit recently, so I’m abstaining.”

“Fair enough,” she said, and put the beer down on the railing by his arm. “It’s there if you want it.”

“Good thing the weather cleared up,” Ginsberg said. “It was cats and dogs yesterday.”

Both the beach and the streets had been packed with partying college kids making up for lost time. There were originally plans to go to a restaurant to eat but everything was booked up, so they stayed in.

He was grateful for the company and the day-long distraction they provided. It kept him from thinking about things he shouldn’t.

Joyce nodded without speaking and blew smoke out into the air. She offered the joint to him, too. “Oh, right,” she said when he declined. “You don’t smoke.”

“Are you staying the night?” he asked. “The couch isn’t a pull out - but hey, you could take my bed. I don’t mind sleeping in the living room.”

“Nah, we’re not going to displace you,” said Joyce. “Besides, Rita has to fly out tomorrow. Fresno, this time.”

Rita was a stewardess. She had been all over the place - to Italy, even. “Cheapest way I could travel,” she had told him when he first met her. “Good thing I’m not afraid of heights.”

He could hear her laugh inside the house. She was telling Peggy and Stan horror stories about work. People did some strange shit on airplanes. The mile-high club was only the beginning.

“You’ve been together for what, a year?” he asked.

“A year come August,” Joyce said.

“Congratulations.”

She looked thoughtful, the joint burning away between her fingers. “If I was a guy I’d be asking her to marry me right about now. But we don’t have a script laid out like that for us.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” said Ginsberg.

“I think so. But there are times when I get the feeling that she’d like it - fancy gown, church wedding, cheesy photograph album.”

“I wish you could,” Ginsberg said. “I mean, if you want to.” He couldn’t picture Joyce in a wedding dress. His brain would not go there.

“We’ll muddle through,” said Joyce. “Hey, I hear there’s always living in sin. Seems to have worked out pretty well for those two yokels in there.”

“It did,” said Ginsberg, and felt the same strain of weird sadness that he always did whenever he thought about their upcoming nuptials. It was selfish of him, to think like that. They were happy. He was happy for them. “I’m glad.”

“Are you?” said Joyce. “Good.”

“What does that mean?” Ginsberg asked, startled. “Why would I be - what, you thought I didn’t want them getting married?”

“Of course not,” she said, gently. “I just meant that you seemed a little down lately. Peggy noticed it.”

“Peggy -”

“We like to talk about you behind your back.” She dropped the joint into the dregs of her beer as a makeshift ashtray. “Actually, you’re one of her favorite subjects.”

He followed her back into the house. “Anyway,” Rita was saying, “when the plane landed the police were there waiting for us, and they arrested him.”

Peggy waved him over. He slid in next to her on the couch and gave her the unopened beer. She was wearing her long white dress again, hair tucked plainly behind her ears. Beautiful. “Tell that one again,” she said to Rita, and smiled at him. “Michael will want to hear it.”

 

 

They tidied up after Joyce and Rita drove away, Stan and Ginsberg taking care of the dishes as Peggy cleared empty bottles off the coffee table and swept. It was a beautiful night, so none of them wanted to stay inside once their chores were done. Peggy and Stan sat on the porch swing while Ginsberg left for the beach for another nocturnal stroll.

Halfway there he doubled around and turned back; he got a quizzical look from both of them as he came into view and climbed the porch steps.

“You want to come with?” he asked. “It’s so quiet out there, we’ll have the place all to ourselves.”

He was right about that. Tonight there were no cookouts, even, just deserted acres of sand and a silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps and the sea itself.

“Was that a shooting star?” Peggy asked, looking upwards.

“I don’t think so,” said Stan. “Or I missed it if it was.” They were holding hands as they walked along.

“Close enough,” Peggy said. “I’m making a wish.”

She wrapped her free hand around the crook of Ginsberg’s elbow, linking arms, and he knew what _his_ wish was.

“Did I ever thank you?” he asked, standing under that big celestial sky, feeling like his skin had gone transparent and he couldn’t hold anything back. Like he didn’t want to. It was the stars, it was the ocean, it was them, there with him - heavenly bodies, all.

“For what?” Stan asked.

“God, for everything,” he said. He had thought of himself as being fundamentally sick - no, not just sick. Diseased, twisted, a permanent quarantine case. A fucking leper. Not somebody who deserved to have other people around him. They changed that for him, or were the catalyst for him to do it himself. Gave him the spark he needed to keep going. He could have ended up a suicide - probably would have, if things had kept going the way they had been. He had been much closer to it than he realised at the time. “For coming to see me at the asylum, for taking care of my father while I was gone. I don’t know what either of us would have done without you. I think you kept me alive.”

Peggy slid her hand down to his and squeezed. She looked a little upset and he knew she didn’t like talking about that time.

“No getting sad,” he said, and combed back some loose strands of her hair that were blowing around in the breeze. “This is all good stuff.”

“I know,” she said, and when she kissed him it was almost expected.

“Oh,” he said, against her lips, and let her put her hands on the back of his neck and pull him down again. It was a shock to the system, an engine revving, and he kissed her with all the fierce, overwhelmed hunger he had been suffering for so long. And then he made himself stop.

“What are we doing,” he said. “You - we -”

“Use your words, Michael,” said Peggy, pressing her lips against his temple.

“I thought it was just me,” he said. All those odd lingering looks, the accidental touches that made his pulse race - he wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t _alone_.

He looked at Stan over her shoulder. “Is this for just one night? Because I can’t do that.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not. You’re not a piece on the side, Ginzo.”

“Okay,” he said, swallowing hard. His eyes dropped to Stan’s mouth. “Okay. But are you - are _we_ -”

“Obviously,” huffed Stan, and tilted Ginsberg’s chin up with one hand. He watched him flush with a broad, dirty grin, and then leaned in for a kiss that was everything that grin promised. They were both breathing harder when they pulled apart.

One corner of Stan’s mouth curled up and he looked far too satisfied with himself. “Race you home,” he said, and they were off.

 

 

They stumbled through the door clawing at each other, pulling at clothes, tripping over each other’s feet in their eagerness. He didn’t know which hands belonged to whom, in his hair, between his legs, making him moan into Peggy’s mouth. Someone - Stan - undid his belt, and Peggy started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Wait,” he said, and caught her fingers with his own. “Can I keep it on?”

She tilted her head to the side and bit her lower lip. He took a minute to appreciate her pink mouth and the traces of sunburn on her shoulders.“If you want to,” she said slowly. “But I would like to see you, if I can.”

“What’s the verdict?” Stan asked. He had finished with the belt and was awaiting instruction with his hands resting lightly on Ginsberg’s waist.

“What the hell,” said Ginsberg, heart in his throat. “Go for it.”

Peggy smiled brilliantly and slipped his buttons open the rest of the way. She slid the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms carefully. He let her undress him like he was a doll, shivering not from the cold, but from Stan tracing the line of his backbone with the tips of his fingers and then the wet touch of his mouth.

Peggy pressed her lips to the hollow of his throat, the underside of his jaw and finally over his scar in a soft, open-mouthed kiss. He closed his prickling eyes because he was _not_ going to cry in the middle of sex.

“Good?” asked Stan, and how the hell he could tell what was going on from the back of Ginsberg’s head was anyone’s guess.

“Yeah,” said Ginsberg, opening his eyes again. And he was telling the truth. He trusted them.

“Glad to hear it,” said Stan, and he unzipped Ginsberg’s pants to prove it. They worked them down over his hips together.

He was hard and straining against his underwear. All his breath left him in a hiss when Stan cupped him through his boxers; when he reached inside them he rolled his head back with a whimper.

“Look what I found,” said Stan, and stroked him from root to tip.

“Fuck,” said Ginsberg, “fuck, _fuck_.”

“Already wet as a fucking girl,” Stan said against his ear.

He kept pumping him, relentless, faster and faster - until Ginsberg couldn’t hold his hips still. And he _was_ getting wet, he was, the fabric of his underwear sticking to him, leaving streaks of moisture across Stan’s palm. “Oh, my god,” he said, as wave after wave of sensation rolled through him. It was too much, he -

“Stan, don’t you dare make him come yet,” chided Peggy. “We haven’t even gotten to the bedroom.”

“Killjoy,” said Stan, and when he withdrew his hand Ginsberg didn’t know whether to be relieved or furious.

He settled for trying to catch his breath. Peggy threw a major wrench into the works when she tugged the straps of her dress off her shoulders and let it fall neatly to the floor.

She wasn’t wearing a bra, just white panties. Her skin was creamy and criss-crossed with faint tanlines, a little ruddy on her chest and arms and glowing cheeks. The moonlight suited her.

“You look like you rose out of the ocean,” Ginsberg said.

“Thanks,” she said, laughing, and held out both her hands to lead him into the bedroom.

Stan got undressed while Peggy and Ginsberg lay next to each other on top of the sheets.

“I thought you’d be shyer,” she said, drawing her fingers through his hair.

He did feel clumsy, all knees and elbows and awkward erection. But there was no place he would rather be. “Peggy, I have imagined myself in this bed more times than I can count,” he told her, “doing _everything_.”

The curve of her smile was impish as she cupped the back of his head and brought him down, level with her breasts. “Like this?”

“Like this,” he sighed, and took her nipple in his mouth.

He sucked her nipples into hard little peaks, one breast and then the next, until she was gasping and digging her fingers into his scalp. “Michael, please,” she said, rubbing herself against his leg shamelessly. He moved on to her ribs, the soft skin of her belly, the insides of her thighs.

Her legs fell open when he pressed his mouth to the crotch of her panties, like he had wanted to before. He licked her and tasted clean cotton. She quivered against him when he hooked two fingers along the frilly edge and yanked it aside, tonguing the hot seam of her cunt.

He felt the bed dip - it was Stan, kneeling behind him and taking his boxers off. Then hands were moving smoothly down his legs, parting his thighs.

“What,” he said, and hid his face in the blanket when Stan rolled his balls gently against his palm and pressed down just behind them. “Oh _fuck_. Do that again.”

He did and Ginsberg absolutely whined. He was - he was fucking spurting precome, rutting into his own mess frantically. “Someone screw me,” he said in desperation. “Either of you, _god_. I don’t care who.”

He heard Stan take a deep breath but it was Peggy who got up. “I think that’s my cue,” she said, her voice all husky.

She had him sit with his back to the headboard and climbed up in his lap. “Hi,” she whispered, giggling.

“Hi,” he said, and kissed her.

Stan got in behind her with his arms around her waist. She put her hands on the headboard above Ginsberg’s head and looked down at him. “Ready?”

He nodded.

And then she just - took him in. Eased down slowly until she was seated on his thighs and he was inside her, all the way. He thought he would fuck it up somehow, do something wrong. But they fit together like lock and key.

She was so slick and tight around him. So fucking _hot_. He rocked up, experimentally, and her mouth fell open.

“There you go,” she said. “You’ve got the idea.”

So he did it again, and again. Stan took her hips in his hands and moved her down to meet him, fucking her down onto his cock. Peggy’s back arched and her breath stuttered. She groaned through clenched teeth.

They kept working her between them and no one spoke, no one _could_ \- the only sounds in the room were the slap of flesh on flesh and their lost, animal panting. Peggy made the sweetest noise every time Ginsberg thrust into her, “Ah, ah, _ah_ -”

He tried to say her name but couldn’t get out more than a broken syllable. His face was pressed against her chest; he mouthed at her skin blindly and tasted salt. He reached down between them and found her clit, rubbed her in small circle, he had to see her come, needed it -

She went off like a rocket. He wasn’t the only one who had been waiting.

He kept grinding into her while she spasmed around him. God, he could feel everything, her and him and Stan and all of it, perfect _perfect_ \- she said, “We’ve got you, it’s okay, we’ve got you,” - and he came helplessly, so hard that he felt it in completely non-sexual parts of his body. His thighs, the small of his back, his curling toes.

It took him forever to peel himself off her. His legs were next to useless, shaky and weak.

Stan lifted her with gentle hands and sat her astride his hips. She shuddered when he rubbed the head of his cock against her slit and leaned back against his broad chest.

“Can I, baby?” he asked, his eyes fixed on her face.

“Yes,” she said, “yes, but - oh, careful, _careful_ -”

He lay back so that she could ride him and set the pace. She looked completely wrecked, all tangled hair and bitten lips. When she reached back Stan grabbed her hands immediately; they knew each other so well. Her legs trembled with effort.

Ginsberg could see where Stan opened her up, thick and solid. He reached out to touch.

“Oh,” said Peggy, in a tremulous voice, and threw her head back.

He ducked down on an impulse and licked there, across the base of Stan’s cock, up to Peggy’s clit, wanting to taste them, just once -

And he heard Stan say, “Holy _fuck_ ,” but Peggy -

Peggy _shrieked_. She held him there by two fistfuls of hair, sobbing out his name. “Oh god,” she said, high pitched, “ohgodohgod.” He licked her clit, rubbing it with the flat of his tongue, very, very lightly. She was so sensitive, still, and every twitch and mewl let him know she was getting closer.

Stan came before she did. He pushed inside her as far as he could go and held her in place. She rolled her hips once - Ginsberg pressed down with his tongue - and when her orgasm hit she sounded _agonized_.

For a second he was afraid that he had hurt her, but she crumpled into his arms, pressing kisses against his face randomly - his forehead, the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, you are in such trouble,” she muttered. Her eyes were already closing. She nuzzled into the side of his neck to use him for a pillow. “So … much … trouble.”

“What the _hell_ , Ginsberg,” Stan said, looking completely dumbfounded and also completely fucked out. Which, incidentally, was a great look on him. “Where did that come from?”

“I said I’d been thinking about it.”

“Then what took you so long?” Stan asked, picking up his jeans from the floor and digging in the pockets for his cigarettes. “I never had to work so hard to get laid in my life. Well, except for her.”

“It’s not our fault you like difficult people,” Ginsberg said, and smiled down at Peggy to encourage an affirmation.

There was no answer. She was out like a light.

 

 

The morning after Ginsberg woke up wrapped around Peggy again. This time he stayed exactly where he was, for as long as he wanted.

 

 

They didn’t leave the house much over the next couple of days. They didn’t leave the _sheets_ much over the next couple of days. He worried he might freak them out with how bad he needed it (he had wanted them for years; literal _years_ ) but they accepted everything he had to give so easily. Stan, wrestling him down to the carpet with a laugh and a kiss. Peggy, stripping him and putting him on his back so she could use him any way she wanted to. It left him dazed, nodding off against chests and shoulders. His life had become an impossible waking dream. When he finally did re-emerge into the bright light of day he was almost surprised to find that the world had not changed in his absence. He felt so different.

They went into town to pick up a few groceries and walked back along the beach. There was a small shack not far from the house that he thought had probably been used for storing surfing gear; now it was empty and unlocked. Ginsberg found this out when Peggy and Stan manhandled him inside.

“What,” he said, and Peggy put her hand over his mouth.

“We have to be quiet, okay?” she murmured. “And quick.”

He nodded. He could hear voices outside, the volume growing and fading as they went past. Not close but close enough.

“What about you?” he asked, looking at Stan.

“Oh no,” said Stan, leaning back against the door, his expression sending sparks up Ginsberg’s spine. “I’m just gonna watch.”

 

 

“Are you sure?” said Stan.

“Yes,” said Ginsberg steadily.

“Really sure,” said Stan. He was sitting on the end of the bed and looked dubious.

“Yes,” said Ginsberg again. “I want to know what it feels like.”

“You might not like it,” Stan warned.

“I might not like a lot of things,” said Ginsberg. “That won’t stop me from trying them.”

Stan was - he was nervous, is what he was. He did a good job of keeping it off his face but there was rigidness to his posture that was unusual for him. But for once Ginsberg wasn’t. He was entirely calm and sure in his decision. The only disturbance in his composure was a frisson of excitement.

“He knows what he wants,” said Peggy. She was reclining back against the pillows. “Are you uncomfortable with the idea? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Stan. You know that.”

“That isn’t it,” Stan said. “I - for fuck’s sake. Do we have supplies?”

“Yeah,” Ginsberg admitted, sheepishly. “I got some already.”

“Of course.”

“Great,” said Ginsberg. He pulled his shirt over his head. “How do you want me? On my back? Or should I bend over something -”

“Oh, my god,” Stan muttered.

Peggy suggested being on his stomach might be most comfortable, at least while Stan got him ready. So he lay down with his head in her lap and his arms wrapped loosely around her. The folds of her nightgown smelled like warm laundry. He sighed when her hands stroked his cheek, down his hair, across his shoulders. He could have fallen asleep, if not for what they were all about to do together.

Stan took his time getting him slicked up. He worked up to three fingers before he would do anything else, and that was at Ginsberg’s insistence.

“Come on,” he said, and when Stan curled his fingers and he cut himself off with a moan. “ I - _yes_. God, that feels good.” He was panting lightly, rubbing against the bed.

“Yeah?” said Stan, and did it again.

Ginsberg went tense and then loose at the joints. He sucked in a frenzied breath. “Ah, fuck, _fuck_. That’s enough. I’m ready, okay? I’m ready -”

“Alright,” said Stan, quietly. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “I am so, so sure.”

Peggy held on to him while Stan pushed inside in that same slow, careful way he had used his fingers. He could tell she was watching his face cautiously, searching for any sign of pain or discomfort. But it didn’t hurt - well, maybe it ached a little, but he could take it. He could take it easily, to have this - Stan inside of him, like he’d wanted.

“Still doing okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s - I can’t describe it.” Did Peggy feel like this when they had sex - raw and open and fucking incredible?

“Can I move?” Stan’s voice sounded labored, like he was only just keeping it together.

Ginsberg nodded, and Stan did - short, shallow strokes that made his breath catch at the back of his throat. He spread his legs and Stan pulled his hips up and back, getting a better angle, getting deeper, and _oh_ -

“Like that,” he said. “Right there, that’s it.”

Stan fucked him until he was blind with it, clinging to poor Peggy’s nightgown with white-knuckled fists, unable to hold himself up. All he could say was _please_ , over and over again.

She brushed a soothing hand down the back of his neck again and reached under him with the other. He started shaking as soon as she wrapped her fingers around him and that was the beginning of the end. His whole body tightened up - he could feel himself clench around Stan’s cock and fuck that felt _dirty_ \- and he came with a completely pathetic sob.

Stan curled over his back, breathing harshly and his hips faltering in their rhythm. He fucked him through the aftershocks, drawing it out and out and _out_ , until Ginsberg’s eyes were starting to roll back.

Peggy leaned forward and kissed Stan; he said something into her mouth, low and pained. “He wants it,” she answered. “He wants you to come - don’t you, Michael?”

“Yeah,” he said, and tried to push his ass back, to muster his muscles to actually move somehow. “I want - I want -”

Apparently that was enough. Stan sank into him one final time and collapsed, their slick skin sticking together.

Ginsberg let him lie there for a minute and then nudged him with an elbow. “Ugh,” he said. “You weigh a ton. Get off.”

“Ungrateful little shit,” said Stan, and rolled away.

Ginsberg winced when he pulled out. Okay, that stung.

“Michael, go take a warm bath,” Peggy said. “It’ll help.”

“Sure,” he said, embarrassed, but the way he limped into the bathroom let him know that she was right. He was pretty sore.

She came in when he was waist deep in water and leaned back against the sink with her arms crossed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why tonight? Why not wait until we got back into the city?”

“Why _not_ tonight?”

She fixed him with a no nonsense stare. He used to be on the receiving end of that one frequently, back when he worked for her.

“It’s our last day here,” he said. “I wanted it to be special. Just in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case something changes, once we leave,” he admitted. He couldn’t know for sure that it wouldn’t. They were off to a good start, but they were also far from home and wrapped up in their own little world. In New York, with the everyday stress of life surrounding them - they might decide he wasn’t worth the trouble. They might decide _anything_.

He was the interloper, after all.

Peggy looked exasperated. “You can’t possibly think we haven’t thought this through.”

“Yeah?” he said, and felt like an idiot. He’d insulted her, for no good reason. An excellent way to put a black mark on his report card. Typical.

“Yeah, dummy.” With a quick smile she leaned in and gave him a kiss before heading to the door. “We’ll be waiting for you,” she said, over her shoulder. “Whenever you’re ready.”

 

 

Anita stepped into his path as soon as he opened the door, throwing up a hand. “Stop right there,” she said. “She says you’re not allowed in.”

“What?” he asked, baffled. “Why not?”

“Get lost, Michael!” Peggy called from the recesses of the room. “You’ll see me the same time as everyone else!”

“I’m not the groom, Peggy!” he called back, but Anita was already pushing him out.

“She’s not taking any chances,” she said, primly, and shut the door in his face.

He wandered back into the living room, where his father was sitting on the couch attempting to engage Katherine Olson in conversation. He had borrowed the suit he was wearing from a friend and the jacket was slightly too tight across the shoulders. When Ginsberg walked in he bounced up out of his seat in obvious relief. “You see her?”

“No,” he said. “She’s being superstitious.”

“You think we ought to get going?” asked Morris. “We don’t want to hit bad traffic.”

The church was three blocks away but he was clearly desperate to get out of there. Ginsberg took pity. “Sure,” he said. “I’d better go talk Stan out of his cold feet, anyhow.”

“What,” Katherine said sharply.

“Just a joke,” Ginsberg assured her. “No worries.”

Morris took a couple of steps forward before abruptly realizing that he was still holding a half-filled cup of tea. He turned back and handed it awkwardly to Katherine. “Thank you,” he said, formal as he ever was. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” said Katherine, eyeing him in a vaguely suspicious way.

“That woman makes me nervous,” Morris said, once outside. It was a gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky, birds in all the trees, the whole nine yards. That was a relief. Peggy would have been so disappointed if it had rained.

“That woman makes everyone nervous,” Ginsberg said as they got into the car and he checked the rear view mirror.

Stan was already at the church. One of his uncles directed Ginsberg out back, where there was a little garden with a statue of some saint in it. He didn’t know which one, they all looked the same to him - mournful people in long robes.

He _had_ been joking about the cold feet, but he still expected some kind of pre-wedding jitters. On the contrary Stan was as unruffled as their stone friend among the flowers. “She let you in?” he asked, as Ginsberg sat down next to him.

“Nope.”

“Ha,” said Stan. “Knew she wouldn’t.”

“You look good,” said Ginsberg. The tux suited him and highlighted the breadth of his shoulders particularly well.

“Thanks,” said Stan. Smug as hell, of course.

There was a trellis near the back wall of the garden, wrapped in roses. The breeze stirred a wind chime that was hanging off of it and made a merry little tune. A squirrel ran across the top, chittering. They watched its antics quietly until the ringbearer - a young cousin of Stan’s - shot outside in frenetic enthusiasm.

“They’re coming!” he yelled, and ran back in.

Ginsberg checked to see if anyone was looking through the doorway or out the narrow rectangular windows; they weren’t. He grabbed Stan and hugged him quickly.

“For good luck,” he said, ducking his head and straightening his clothes.

Stan grinned - the kind of grin Ginsberg had seen many times over the past year; the kind of grin that didn’t belong anywhere _near_ a church. “I appreciate the sentiment,” he said. “But we don’t need it.”

 

 

It was a cliche, but Peggy looked radiant coming down that aisle. Ginsberg was so glad he hadn’t spoiled the surprise by seeing her earlier.

“There she is,” said Stan, under his breath. Neither of them took their eyes off her. Not for a single step.

 

 

Ginsberg watched the newlyweds’ first dance from a table in the corner of the ballroom. He had caught sight of Don as they filed out towards the dancefloor, accompanied by a slim, well-dressed girl he thought at first to be an age-inappropriate girlfriend. Then she turned into his view and laughed at something Don said - it was Sally Draper, all grown up. He ducked through the crowd to avoid encountering them. He still didn’t like running into anyone from the SCDP days. It made his insides twist up in knots.

“I don’t think so,” Peggy said, when she discovered him in hiding. She took his hand and pulled him to standing and then in the direction of the dancers.

“I got two left feet,” he complained.

“I don’t care,” she said airily. “I’m the bride so I get what I want. And I want to dance.”

She did fit nicely in his arms, he had to admit. They swayed and twirled amongst the throng of bodies to a jazzy standard. On their second song she brought her lips near his ear. “Guess what?” she whispered.

“What?” he asked, _sotto voce_.

“I managed to get three keys for the honeymoon suite. You might get an invitation, if you ask nice enough.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s in it for me?"

“Hmmm,” she considered. “We do have champagne.”

“Oh, champagne,” he said. “I do like a good glass of bubbly.” He wanted to kiss her and he couldn’t, but that was okay - he would later, and again after that. He had just this morning, before she left to go get complicated things done to her hair.

Stan came up to them, looking them over in an unhurried way that suggested he was enjoying the scene. “Hands off my woman, Ginzo.”

“Can I go, Mrs. Rizzo?”

“Never call me that again,” she said.

Ginsberg hadn’t been sitting but for a couple of minutes when someone settled into the chair beside him. He was expecting his father, or maybe Joyce - so it was a huge shock to glance over and find himself looking into Joan’s face.

She was wearing a blue dress with a wide collar and there was something soft and unfamiliar about her - it was her hair, he thought. He’d never seen her with it down before.

“Michael,” she said, with a nod of acknowledgement.

“Joan,” he stammered, and sat up straighter. She had that kind of an effect on a person.

“Beautiful wedding,” she said. There was a distinct note of amusement in her voice.

“It was. Is.” He drummed his fingers on the table. Was he supposed to ask if she was married, too? What about her son?

“Have you been well?” she asked.

“I have,” he said, and at least he could be honest about that. “I, uh, work at a newspaper now. Not writing. Well, I write - but just at home. So I’m good - things are good.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, matter of fact. She sipped her drink and watched Peggy and Stan take a turn around the floor. “They do look good together, don’t they?”

Peggy was leaning against Stan’s shoulder with her eyes closed and he was resting his cheek on the waves of her hair. She had taken off her veil. They weren’t moving very much, now; so wrapped up in each other that they were almost at a standstill.

“Yeah,” Ginsberg said. “They do.”

(On the day they left the beach he had gone back to the pier one last time. The pier where he’d fallen into the water, where his heart had shuddered to life when Stan touched him. He had gone back and he had etched their names into the wood. _Stan_ and _Peggy_ and _Michael_ , all three linked together. They would be there as long as the dock stood. That was as good a marriage ceremony as any.

When they were packing up the car Stan asked Ginsberg if he was bringing any souvenirs back home with him. Peggy had some seashells; Stan chose a few sticks of driftwood because he wanted to try carving.

“No,” said Ginsberg, with a smile that was wide and free. “I have everything I need.”)

 

 

 


End file.
